Format: Webinar, original date August 24, 2017Hosted by: WebJunction and the Association for Rural and Small LibrariesLength: 1 hour

Earlier this year, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) launched a series of Global Vision discussions to bring together thousands of librarians around the world, through face-to-face and online interactive participation, to explore how a connected library field can meet the challenges of the future. IFLA believes that the challenges facing the library field from ever-increasing globalization can only be met and overcome by an inclusive, global response from a united library field. By joining us for this webinar, you can participate in this global discussion to identify future challenges and opportunities facing the library field and help to prioritize actions that a united and connected library field can take.

Do you want a more in-depth understanding of the true needs of your community?

Are you interested in learning easy ways to get valuable input and advice from your staff or public by conducting focus groups and interviews?

Would like to learn how to communicate the library story using meaningful examples to make your case and get results?

During this one-hour webinar, you will learn the four steps involved in focus groups and interviews. You’ll discover how to clearly define the goal or purpose, how to select participants, and how to successfully conduct the focus group or interviews. We’ll also discuss how to analyze and synthesize the data to create valuable results that you can package and deliver in meaningful and useful ways.

We will show you how to be successful whether conducting interviews and focus groups in-person or online. If you are planning training for your staff, working on a strategic plan, gathering expert knowledge to solve a problem, or gathering stories to influence politicians and decision-makers, this is the webinar for you!

plan for your daughter's college education when you don't have a college education?

organize your reservations so the right books are available at the right time for your vacation?

These are examples of real world situations that people undertake. We all try hard to deliver solutions for tasks we are familiar with but we often only consider a small slice of these users huge real-life experiences.

User experience is about seeing the world from another person's perspective and considering how to support their needs. It is also about how we look at the services and tools we provide and how through understanding our users need, we can make them more relevant and engaging. A user-centered focus makes it possible to create welcoming, supportive and efficient experiences that hide the seams of technologies, teams, and spaces.

This session will introduce you to the value of approaching the design of your services and systems from a user-centered approach and how you can apply observation methods to learn about your users and apply insights. Applying user experience techniques to enhance experience does not need to be expensive but it does require putting the people you serve in the center of system and design thinking.

Learning Outcomes

This webinar will provide:

an introduction to what needs to be considered in creating people experiences for libraries

an overview of methods and approaches that will provide insights on the people you serve, and how to convert insight into action

a list of resources for learning more about designing people experiences

Format: Webinar, original date December 1, 2016Hosted by: WebJunction and the Association for Rural and Small Libraries Length: 1 hour

Your community needs the library, and planning for the future of your library begins with understanding the community and their aspirations. Once you understand what your rural community wants and needs, you can assess how the library can help them. In this webinar, understand the important steps of this engaged planning process, including internal assessment, data collection and analysis, trustee involvement, and community conversations. Learn what it means for your library to “turn outward” to secure its place at the heart of your community.

Join your colleagues from archives, libraries and museums for a two-part, interactive learning webinar that will introduce the fundamentals of project management: planning a project. All of our fields struggle with unstable budgets and dynamic technology, so learning to think and act in terms of projects is critical--it can be the difference between turning an idea into a successful, resourced initiative or not. Led by representatives from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the webinars will focus on the key elements of a project plan: the idea, the audiences, funding options, a work plan, an evaluation, and more. We will also discuss how to critically examine your project ideas, asking, Is it fundable? Valuable? Sustainable? And if not, what could you do differently? While learning these fundamentals, you will also benefit from the insights and experiences shared by your fellow participants from across archives, library, and museum institutions.

In this highly interactive second session, we will use sample project ideas and case studies to look at how we can assess the strength of a project plan before it is implemented. We will also discuss other project management resources and where to learn more about the topic.

Learn how the rural library dramatically changed focus in the last 5 years—from book depository to community hub, and how they’ve turned outward to build relationships and try new ideas. Being at the fortunate point in time that the library was running out of money and volunteers, with no tax dollar support, created freedom to experiment without fear of failure. Successful leaders need to paint a compelling and inspiring picture of what that future will look like. This requires developing your own clear vision of where you want to go and providing meaningful guidance regarding how to move forward.

Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, will be joined by digital and library experts to discuss the findings of the Project’s most recent report, Library Services in the Digital Age, which asked a representative sample of Americans what types of services they value in their library and what types of services they would like to see their library start to offer. These findings are critical to informing the conversation on how to advance change in libraries in order to keep them relevant and responsive to communities in our increasingly digital age.

Join your colleagues from archives, libraries and museums for a two-part, interactive learning webinar that will introduce the fundamentals of project management: planning a project. All of our fields struggle with unstable budgets and dynamic technology, so learning to think and act in terms of projects is critical--it can be the difference between turning an idea into a successful, resourced initiative or not. Led by representatives from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the webinars will focus on the key elements of a project plan: the idea, the audiences, funding options, a work plan, an evaluation, and more. We will also discuss how to critically examine your project ideas, asking, Is it fundable? Valuable? Sustainable? And if not, what could you do differently? While learning these fundamentals, you will also benefit from the insights and experiences shared by your fellow participants from across archives, library, and museum institutions.

This first session describes how careful planning leads to more successful projects. We cover how to develop an idea, define your audience, look at funding options, do an environmental scan, assess your resource capacity and needs, and develop a project scope and schedule for implementation. Attendees were invited to use the two weeks between webinars to outline a project idea based on these key principles. Submitted project plans were reviewed by webinar moderators with individual feedback provided for each submission.

Around the world, libraries are at the heart of community transformation. Instead of aiming to be responsive to emerging needs, libraries can actively push their communities to develop and thrive. Hear stories from around the globe about libraries that are a force to be reckoned with. Join us for this webinar that shares examples of libraries at the leading edge of positive change in communities in Honduras, Guatemala, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. Learn about and bring home successful, practical grassroots approaches to library-driven community development. The organizations and libraries featured are grantees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or are beneficiaries of a foundation-supported program. Darren Hoerner, Program Officer at the Gates Foundation, will introduce the session. Guided by the belief that all lives have equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people live healthy, productive lives.

Surveys are often the tool of choice when you want to determine how to meet the needs of your community or measure your library’s impact. But do you know how to use the tool effectively? Choosing the right survey style for the situation and knowing which question type will elicit the best responses are critical elements for gathering meaningful information. Learn how to conduct an effective survey that can be used to make, measure, and meet your library’s goals. The results may just surprise you. At the end of this one-hour webinar, participants will:

Format: Self-paced CourseDeveloped by: LibraryU, a program of the Illinois State Library and the regional library systemsLength: 1 hour

This course will aid a library director, or anyone charged with creating a library disaster plan. The course covers three main areas of disaster preparedness that are critical to your library's ability to respond to, and even prevent major and minor disasters:

Planning - Begin by understanding how to identify both potential hazards in the library and the environmental emergencies likely for your location that could lead to a disaster.

Preparedness - Once potential disasters have been identified and possible damage to the building have detailed, a list of actions can be determined, reviewed and practiced in order to ensure the safety of the patrons, staff, and building should disaster strike.

Documentation - Writing a Disaster Plan establishes the strategies for recovery and salvage of equipment and materials, responsibilities and priorities in the event of a disaster, as well as identifying the location of backup copies of information.

Circulation, visits, program attendance, patron satisfaction…these are some of the many measures commonly collected by public librarians. But how well do we understand what measures tell the most meaningful stories of today’s libraries? During the first two webinars in this series, we discussed the current state of the public library data landscape – what data collection efforts exist at the national level and how they impact what we know about libraries and their patrons. In this third webinar, we will look toward the future, considering what data public librarians should collect to demonstrate their impact. To do this, we will hear from speakers both within and outside of the library field who will provide multiple perspectives on meaningful measures.

In the United States, there are a number of national surveys of public libraries and their patrons. While all of these efforts help us tell a data-based story of public libraries, they differ in terms of their samples, what types of data they collect, and how their data are collected, stored, and accessed. During the first webinar in this three-part series, we scanned the landscape of major public library surveys and considered how library data could be used more productively in the future. In this second webinar, we will drill deeper into the concepts of sampling, data types, and data management, and how they impact what we know about public libraries and their patrons. At the end of this webinar, participants will have a greater understanding of various sampling methods, recognize the differences between inputs, outputs, and outcomes, and be aware of the data management practices for various national public library surveys.

Data gathering and responding to surveys are part of every public librarian's routine. Yet we rarely pause to reflect on these efforts and consider what data matters most. What measures best demonstrate the role, value, and impact of public libraries in the 21st century? How can the various surveys and tools commonly used by public libraries be leveraged with each other and other data sources to best demonstrate that impact? The Institute of Museum and Library Services in cooperation with the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies is launching the "Measures that Matter" initiative, a field-wide discussion of the current state of public library data. The initiative will first take stock of the current landscape and then re-envision how data could be collected, stored, used and disseminated more productively in the future. In this webinar, the first in a 3-part series, we’ll discuss the view that emerged from looking at a number of major library surveys and data collection tools, and consider opportunities to pursue a national action plan to move the field toward ever-more meaningful measures.

Public libraries offer vital services to the community that provide opportunities for education, lifelong learning, literacy, digital skills, workforce development, and youth development. In order to gain and retain funding, libraries should have data to support their stories of success and positive impact on the lives of community members. Outcome measurement is a process which provides libraries with data that can be used for advocacy, programming decisions, and planning, so the library can communicate clearly and make improvements to programs and services. Outcome measurement can be a big undertaking, but a new toolkit has been developed to help libraries easily and effectively survey patrons to learn the true impact of their programs.

When you ask civilians (those people who are neither library workers nor our closest advisers, such as Friends and Trustees) what they would like to see in their libraries, they generally give predictable, and predictably narrow, answers. They want what they’ve always known in libraries, only more of it and during more open hours. Or they “envision” services we’ve been offering for years without their knowing it. This can be quite frustrating as we try to re-imagine libraries for the 21st Century.

Don’t misunderstand: library consultants Joan Frye Williams and George Needham strongly believe that it’s important to involve the people we serve in library planning and evaluation, but traditional approaches to community engagement are often far too expensive and time consuming for the limited results they produce. They can also be downright boring for all concerned!